When the Prenup Isn’t Just Between Two People: Family Wealth, Parental Influence, and the Challenge of Individuation

Written by: Jon Kramer, LCSW, Jill Cohen, Esq, and Dr. Jaye-Jo Portanova, MD

Prenuptial agreements are generally known as legal understandings between two people who are preparing to marry. But in some families, particularly families with significant wealth, the prenup involves considerably more than the prospective spouses. Parents may have substantial financial interests at stake, strong opinions about how family wealth should be preserved, and deeply held beliefs about what is best for their child, even if their child is now an adult. Parents also often want to “complete their job” at this family milestone by imparting guidance and wisdom.

This dynamic can be especially challenging when one set of parents (let alone both sets of parents) are actively involved in negotiating the terms of a prenuptial agreement. Their involvement may be motivated by a desire to be responsible parents, as well as by concerns about preserving family wealth and property. The very intensity of that involvement can create another problem: the prospective spouse may have difficulty establishing an independent adult relationship with their own parents and their future spouse.

When Family Wealth Becomes Family Authority

Our Institute members considered this complicated topic. Members experienced parental involvement in a prenuptial agreement negotiation along a spectrum – from “behind-the-scenes” meaning that the parental opinion was shared with the attorney by their client; to parent(s) joining a consultation with the attorney to share their perspective directly and then leaving the remainder of the work between the attorney and the client; to parents joining for all or most of the meetings with the attorney and giving direct feedback on the draft agreement; to parents demanding that the agreement provide for particular terms, even against the wishes of the client. At this more challenging end of the spectrum, the parents might indicate that there could be consequences in the terms of the prenuptial agreement go against their wishes, such as modifying intended future plans for gifts or inheritance.

Even in the more challenging cases, the parents were seemingly well intended. They “knew about life and about marriage” and believed it was their responsibility to share their experience and protect their child. They also believed that they were protecting family assets that ultimately would be passed to the child and, eventually, to their grandchildren. Yet in these types of cases, it becomes clear that there is an important distinction between the parents’ protecting their adult child’s financial interests and controlling the adult child’s financial decisions.

In such cases, that distinction can become blurred when parents begin to dictate the terms under which their child should marry. The parents may be legally sophisticated and financially experienced, yet still have difficulty recognizing that their child is now an adult making decisions about their own marriage. The result can be a prenup that reflects not only the couple’s financial concerns, but also the parents’ expectations about how their child’s marriage should work, at least financially. This can create tension between the client and their prospective spouse, particularly when the resulting agreement reflects the parents’ priorities more than the client’s own wishes or the couple’s considered decisions.

The “Third Marriage” Problem

One way to understand this dynamic is to consider the idea of a person being, psychologically, in more than one marriage. There is the newly forming marriage between the two spouses. But when parents remain deeply involved in their adult child’s decisions, often from a well-intentioned perspective, there can be a kind of second—or even “third”—marital relationship operating in the background: the adult child remains emotionally and financially tied to the parents (and vice versa) in ways that compete with , rather than complement, the new marital relationship.

Family-systems pioneers Carl Whitaker and Salvador Minuchin wrote prolifically about these kinds of family dynamics. Dr. Minuchin is known for one of his many systemic metaphors, asking a wife, in the context of an unhealthy alliance with her son: when did you divorce your husband and marry your son? In the context of family law, this same metaphor can be framed: How can a newly marrying daughter marry her husband if she has not yet divorced her parents?

The issue is not simply that the parents have opinions. Parents are entitled to have opinions, and adult children are entitled to listen to them. The more significant question is whether the adult child possesses the ego strength and emotional confidence to potentially say, “I have heard what my parents think, and yet this is my decision.”

That is the psychological task of individuation: moving from being a child whose parents make important decisions to becoming an adult who can maintain meaningful relationships with parents while exercising independent judgment. Margaret Mahler’s work on separation and individuation provides one important framework for understanding this developmental process. When that process has not fully occurred, a prenup can become a particularly revealing dynamic in which the developmental struggle plays out.

Is the Adult Child Being Protected—or Infantilized?

In the more challenging cases of parental involvement, the parents appeared to have difficulty trusting their adult child’s judgment. Although fully an adult, preparing to marry and begin the next phase of their life, these parents continued to participate actively in decisions concerning the terms of the financial relationship with their future spouse. The concern was not that the parents cared too much about their adult child. Nor was it that their financial concerns were necessarily unreasonable. The concern was that their involvement seemed to communicate something more fundamental: We do not believe you are capable of making this decision without us.

This is where financial and psychological control can become intertwined. A parent may say, “We are simply making sure you don’t lose what belongs to you. We believe in your relationship and we also know how life can look in the future.” But the adult child may experience the message as, “We don’t trust you to decide what is best for you.” And the spouse whom they are marrying may experience this dynamic in a way that plants the seeds of resentment: I am marrying more than just my partner.

That distinction matters enormously once the child enters a marriage. A successful marriage requires the spouses to develop their own boundaries, make decisions together, and establish a new primary adult attachment to one another. If one spouse remains significantly accountable to a parent for major financial and relational decisions, the couple may struggle to establish their own important family unit. The prenup may then become an expression of an otherwise invisible family dynamic.

What The Prenup Can Reveal About Family Relationships

For family law attorneys, mental health and financial professionals working with couples, these cases offer an important lesson: the financial terms may not tell the entire story.

A lawyer may be focused appropriately on enforceability, disclosure, separate property, inheritance, and the client’s legal interests. But as our Institute members were highlighting, another set of questions may be equally important:

• Who is driving the negotiations?
• Does the adult child feel free to disagree with their parents?
• In the scenario where both sets of parents are involved do both adult children feel free to disagree with their respective parents?
• Is the prospective spouse negotiating with his or her future spouse—or indirectly negotiating with their future in-laws?
• What happens if the adult child says no to their parents’ wishes?
• Are financial gifts being used to support the adult child’s autonomy or to maintain parental influence?
• What will happen to the marriage if the couple makes a financial decision with which the parents disagree?

These are not necessarily legal questions. But they can profoundly impact the legal process.

Who Is the Stakeholder?

One of the most useful concepts in these cases is stakeholder identification. The legal parties to a prenup are the prospective spouses. But the people who have an emotional or financial stake in the outcome may extend far beyond those two individuals.Parents may be concerned about inheritance. Siblings may have an interest in future distributions of family wealth. Trusts may have restrictions. Estate plans may create expectations. Family businesses may be involved. The challenge for the professional team—the family law attorney, the neutral financial professional, and the mental health professional—is determining which of these interests and concerns need to be addressed and how.A parent who is not a party to the agreement cannot simply become an additional client. At the same time, ignoring the parent’s influence does not make that influence disappear.This is where interdisciplinary work can become particularly valuable.

The Role of the Mental Health Professional

A mental health professional working as part of the team can help identify dynamics that may be invisible when the discussion is limited to legal and financial terms. The goal is not to diagnose the parents or tell them to stay out of their child’s life. Nor is the goal to determine whose financial position is “right.” Instead, the mental health professional can help the family explore questions such as:

• What are the parents afraid will happen?
• Do the parents fear that they will have failed in their role if they do not provide guidance at this important milestone?

• What does the adult child believe they owe their parents?
• Can the adult child disagree with them without fearing that they will lose their parents love or financial support?
• Can the couple make decisions together without seeking parental approval?
• What boundaries will allow the parents to remain supportive without remaining in charge and infantilizing their soon-to-be-married child?

These conversations can sometimes transform the entire process. The objective is not necessarily to remove parents from the conversation. In some families, their participation can be constructive. The objective is to clarify roles so that everyone understands where parental interests and concern end and the adult child’s autonomy begin.

The Larger Question

At its best, a prenuptial agreement allows two adults to enter marriage with greater clarity about money, property, inheritance, and expectations. But when significant family wealth is involved, the prenup can also become a stage upon which longstanding family dynamics are enacted. This issue can be even further complicated when there is significant family wealth on both sides of the couple who are marrying. Parents may be trying to protect their child. The child may be trying to remain loyal to their parents. The prospective spouse may be trying to establish a marriage that is separate from both of their families of origin. And the lawyers may be trying to create an agreement that accurately reflects the client’s wishes and protects the client’s interests.

All of those goals can be legitimate—and still conflict with one another. The challenge is therefore not simply to draft the right document. It is to help the family understand who is making the decisions, whose interests are being protected, and whether the adult child is actually free to make an adult choice. In that sense, some of the most important work may take place outside the four corners of the prenup.

For professionals involved in collaborative divorce, mediation, and other forms of consensual dispute resolution, these cases underscore the value of looking beyond the legal dispute to the family system surrounding it. Identifying the stakeholders, understanding the overt and covert power dynamics, and creating space for the parents to express their legitimate interest and concerns is vital. All while also holding space for the adult children to individuate so that an agreement can be reached that not only works legally, but also has a chance of supporting the marriage it is intended to protect. Ultimately, the question may be less about whether parents should be involved than about how they are involved. There is a meaningful difference between parents helping their adult child protect family wealth and parents determining the terms under which that child should enter a marriage. The first can be an expression of care. The second may reflect a family struggling to adjust to the adult child’s growing autonomy and the parents’ changing role in their life.

References

Mahler, M. S., Pine, F., & Bergman, A. (1975). The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant: Symbiosis and Individuation. Basic Books.

Minuchin, S., Nicols, Michael P., and Lee, Wai-Yung (2007). Assessing Families and Couples: From Symptom to System. Pearson Education, Inc.

Whitaker, C. A., & Napier, A. Y. (1978). The Family Crucible: The Intense Experience of Family Therapy. Harper & Row.